It is all about what it means to be human and only humanists have the training and expertise to take all of the differentiated and sometimes radically segmented and even segregated knowledge components to combine them into large insights that do not lose sight of the local and specific and historical determinants of those insights.

[…]

Our HASTAC mission is to understand what it means to be human in the present moment and to work collaboratively with others who share this goal to come up with the most complex and interesting and engaged answers (hardly stable or final ones) that help make our students more informed and astute students of a complex world.

The HASTAC mission corresponds very well to the mission of HUMlab, and I am happy that we are involved in this discussion. Also, I find it quite interesting to see how different kinds of funding agencies support/not not support the kind of work Cathy talks about. It is quite clear there has been a radical change, and that many more universities – not least in the US – are showing a pronounced interest in this mission. It seems to me that cybersinfrastructure has been one ‘way in’, and here there are clear parallels between the US and Sweden.